Damages At Fort Bowyer

Fort Bowyer Morphed To Fort Morgan

Congressional serial set, Issue 210:

"...the commanding officer had said store-house demolished, in order that it might not afford to the invaders a shelter."

"Your petitioner, Benjamin S. Smoot, of Mobile, Alabama, represents that he was sutler to the second regiment of the United States' infantry, from 1809 to 1815; that he, with his partner in business, Dennison Darling, erected, about the year 1813, at fort Bowyer, a store-house... ."

Baldwin County, Alabama's Guide to the Records of Miscellaneous Court Records Collection included the following:

"Benjamin Stoddart Smoot’s name appears in several of the early documents. The young Smoot arrived in the area in the early 1800s and was appointed the Baldwin County sheriff. He married a daughter of Samuel Mims who was killed in the 1813 Fort Mims massacre and during the subsequent Creek Indian War he served on Andrew Jackson’s staff."

Major Tatum's Journal

Major Howell Tatum's Journal: While Acting Topographical Engineer (1814) ...:

A bit of biographical information about Tatum:

After resigning from the army in 1782, Captain Tatum turned to the law. At some time he must have studied surveying, an accomplishment of many of the bright young men of the colonies. His topographical notes of the voyage down the Alabama River in 1814 show how well he was versed in that art. As a lawyer, he was in Nashville as early as 1790, for when Tennessee was organized as a territory under federal authority after it had been ceded by North Carolina, Tatum was one of the lawyers whom the new governor licensed to practise law at that place on December 15 of that year. It is of interest to see who were the others. In the records of the local court the names stand as follows: "Josiah Love, John Overton, Andrew Jackson, David Allison, Howell Tatum, James Cole Mountflorence and James White.

A reference to William Weatherford's plantation in an excerpt from Major Tatum's Journal:

Fort Bowyer Morphed To Fort Morgan

Fort Bowyer was at the site of present day Fort Morgan near Mobile Bay in Alabama.

From this source:
Fort Bowyer was a small semi-circular fort built of logs and sand in 1813 and named for Revolutionary War hero Colonel John Bowyer. When present day Fort Morgan was built, Fort Bowyer was used as headquarters. Fort Bowyer burned in the 1830's.

A redoubt at the end of a tongue of land on Mobile bay called Fort Bowyer was imperfectly raised and garrisoned by 130 men of the second regiment of United States infantry commanded by Major William Lawrence.
The men were not artillerists. Their means were extremely slender.  But Major Lawrence gallantly repulsed the formidable assault by land and water, which began there the invasion of Louisiana; though after the victories of New Orleans, he was at last compelled to surrender his fort by capitulation to the final hostilities on this continent [2nd battle]. [Source]